Socialist Spain is leading the way in attempts to ban private messaging technology in the European Union, according to a leaked survey of member state opinions on encryption.
A leaked document from the European Council, originally obtained by the tech magazine Wired, which surveyed EU member states on the proposed law that would force messaging companies, like WhatsApp and Signal, to break their encryption and scan the content of private messages to supposedly stop the spread of child pornography.
The proposed legislation has been criticised by privacy rights campaigners as well as by tech experts, who say that it is not possible for encrypted messages to be ‘scanned’ by the providers as the very point of end-to-end messengers is that they are only visible to the parties involved, with even the provider itself being blocked from viewing the content. Therefore, the law would in reality force the companies to break their encrypted services.
